Jump to content

Menu

junepep

Members
  • Posts

    265
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by junepep

  1. It's not a book, but since you mentioned that you guys like to listen to things anyway vihart had a fun video about how we hear -- And then vsauce had an interesting video about whether we'll ever run out of music -- Which can then lead you to (preview it first) Axis of Awesome's 4chords video (which is really fun) and a a ton of other sound/music related video links in vsauce's 'about' section on the video. :) edited to add -- sorry guys, I'm not sure why the full youtube previews are there or how to remove them, it'd just intended to link to the videos.
  2. I sent you a pm - but since I have issues responding to people (the last note that I tried to send to someone wound up as my personal status for over a year) I'm also writing here :) lol
  3. After soap carving (or if your dc feels like that isn't "real" carving because it's not wood) you could move to Balsa wood :) it's really easy to carve it with dull instruments.Just don't get the super thin pieces because they have a tendency to fragment esp your child presses too hard.
  4. I print out all of the practice book and lesson plan pages, I also print out the enlarged copywork pages (but not all of them, only the ones that I think that we'll need). OP -- MEP is definitely a stand alone program. It doesn't need a supplement, but since it's free I've been able to use my math budget to actually buy tons of supplemental math books (*cough* or entire programs <.<). At the moment we're supplementing MEP with Miquon (3xper week) and Beast Academy (2x per week). To keep in mind -- Kit's used MEP, with various supplements, since Reception (we're ~1/2 done with yr 2 now), it might be difficult to jump into at first coming from other programs -- the sequence is also different than other programs (ie it doesn't really get around to manipulating numbers over 100 until year 3).
  5. I had once tried to put together just such a list, and then I realized how utterly futile it really was. Few programs are entirely one thing or another. I'll put my list here for people to pick through / argue over and add more information about each program -- keep in mind I haven't seen most of the programs myself and when I made the list I was just going off how people described them on the forums. Math Programs by Classification Abeka - Spiral / Incremental (Drill & Review) Christian Light Education / Publications (CLE) - Spiral / Incremental (Drill & Review) Everyday Math (EM) - Spiral / Fast Horizons - Spiral / Slow moving Math on Level - Spiral Saxon - Spiral / Incremental (Drill & Review) Teaching Textbooks (TT) - Spiral(?) / fast (little review) Bob Jones - Mastery (?) Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching (MEP) - Mastery(???) (based off hungarian prog) -- This was where I classified it before I used it, however, in practice I've found MEP to be a spiral program. Beast Academy - Mastery -- In my very limited experience, (we're in book 1, but I did all of the problems through the end of year 3 before starting with my daughter) at first glance this is a Mastery program, but each chapter really builds off of the ones before it, so it is far more mixed than it appears. K12 - Mastery (has review, not enough for dc who need an incremental approach) Math Mamoth (MM) - Mastery (Singapore based but w/ far more review - if not bought in indiv modules it is like a spiral program) Progress in Mathmatics - Mastery (?) Right Start (RS) - Mastery (some said spiral - long enough gap in between to need 'refreshers') Rod & Staff (R&S) - Mastery (?) Singapore - Mastery / Fast (little review, can be slowed down with WB, IP, CWP - however, does spiral yr over yr) Math U See (MUS) - Mastery (hands on w/ worksheets) Miquon - Mastery (hands on) -- In my experience this program can actually be done as spiral or mastery depending entirely on how you want to implement it (doesn't go all the way to 6th) Chalk-Board - DVD program Video Text - DVD program (beginning @ algebra) CMSP - ? Professor B - ? Life of Fred - Sometimes used as a full curricula, other times used as a break or supplement (Kit didn't care for Fred, I wouldn't call it a stand alone program at all). Living Math - supplemental reading (lots of ideas / lists on the forums - but here's a link to math books: http://www.livingmat...US/Default.aspx I suspect that one way to tell whether your child would benefit more from mastery or spiral would be how many reminders does he need. If he remembers how to do problems that he hasn't seen in 3 / 6 / 12 mos (or doesn't need a refresher after taking a summer break) then perhaps he would be a good fit for some version of a "mastery" program. In the end, your best bet is to evaluate each program on it's merits. MEP is free, you can go look at the scope and sequence and Math Mammoth has (if I'm remembering correctly) lots of samples. Sit down with your child in mind and just run through the sections to see if either would work. I will say that I've found it harder to hop forward in MEP when Kit has a leap in math and doesn't need the review. We wind up having to go through each page and cross off the non-challenging / interesting problems and then cobble multiple lessons together, but she's been really happy with the program over all (even though a mastery program might be a better fit) and so it's worth the extra time and trouble for us. TDLR; Experiment until you find something that your child enjoys, because that's all that really matters. I've found that the labels are fairly meaningless.
  6. Another vote for SOTW as a spine here! We plan to branch out as much as we possibly can from there, but in conjunction with the AG it gave me just what I needed to feel confident that I could actually teach them history. It's as accurate as anything else out there and most importantly, the girls love it (we've been listening to the audio books in the car for a while now). I've dumped the stuff that I'll be using to supplement SOTW1 here: http://lovelearnplay...m/history/#Year 1 Outline -- We're so excited to get started :hurray: but I'm waiting until we officially start 1st in Sept, it gives us something to look forward to as "first grade" work since I let Kit start everything else already :-/ (edited - fixed the link :))
  7. We use them, and they've been wonderful. However, because my children are a bit on the young side for the lesson plans I modified them a bit to fit the girl's output, so we haven't used them according to "plan". Both of my girls have really enjoyed them though. Just be careful to sort out and count your pieces. The bridges set was missing two grey pieces.
  8. I second Campbell. We used it in our 111 & 112 classes in college. I enjoyed reading it and still have my copy which I whip out to review things or to pull out more info from to supplement BFSU for the girls. Also, for middle school level, there are the holt science books (I didn't see them linked, but only skimmed this thread, so apologies if someone's already linked them) I've never used them, maybe someone else can chime in with whether they're good or not: http://forums.welltr...-workbooks-pdf/ :) Edited to add: MUS is not secular, the songs from the CD reference bible stories.
  9. There are actual lesson plans available for Salsa as well through the Dept of Education Site in Wyoming (although I don't think that an 11yo would actually like salsa, since it's very obviously geared to younger children, but here's the link to the lesson plans jic: http://edu.wyoming.gov/searchresults.aspx?SearchQuery=salsa
  10. At first we were spending about 2-3 weeks (4 days a week for about 10 minutes) on each step, for the last few chapters it's been about a week for each. I'm planning to slow her back down because she's starting to slip up a little bit, I think that we were only able to 'accelerate' because the last few chapters were spelling rules that she'd intuited from reading. Each book takes us about a full year of school to work through :)
  11. Kit loves art too. She's also really quite dreadful at it, but she loves it anyway and wants to be an artist (with a side job as a chef) when she grows up. Because she wanted to learn to draw I bought her a beginning drawing book for kids and she's been really diligent about working through it on her own time. Her art is improving but overall unlike other posters her perfectionist side is absolutely engaged with art. She sees "right" and "wrong" in her OWN art, even if she appreciates other people's art as it stands. I'm wondering if the link between these kids isn't perfectionism but something else. Kit sees patterns everywhere, does anyone else's aspiring artist also do this?
  12. Unfortunately, I don't really know of anything like that. I wound up reading through all of the materials, marking likely starting places for the first couple of months of lessons and just hoping that I didn't completely ruin it. At first, I tested the water a bit by alternating between giving her the sheets on topics that we were currently working on (but at a deeper level) and doing select games/activities from the 1st grade diary. Gus and Happy were her absolute favorite things. After a while I'd just pull them out to 'play math' with us because she loved them so much. I hate to sound so loosey goosey about it, but it really felt like one of those programs that works best if you understand the underlying concepts about how to teach it and then just go with it. Normally I prefer heavily scripted programs like MEP, but wound up being good for both of us for me to go out of my comfort zone to do Miquon. These days I just hand Kit a choice of workbooks and she just chooses something that looks fun. If it's something that we haven't covered somewhere else she tries it and then if she gets stuck we'll talk through it (or if it's something that I can turn into a game or activity in some way I do). The cuisinaire rods were the least used aspect of the program for her because she hates manipulatives, but I expect that it'll be the main focus for Mim, so... again, it's sort of loosey-goosey - there's a lot of adapting to the child that you happen to have in front of you that goes along with Miquon too I think.
  13. Thanks again everyone! I'm so excited!! :D I'm glad that I finally made the decision to do this and I really appreciate all of your help.
  14. Thanks Kiana!! You're right, I'm buying trouble before I've gotten there :D
  15. Will AoPS still work for me then or do you think that something less challenging would be a better fit for the "first time through"?
  16. Thanks for all of those links Peach!! I'll spend time this afternoon checking them out :) I hate to say it, but I tend to fall asleep trying to learn things with the Khan Academy videos. I try really hard to listen, but I just can't stay on track - I think that it might just be the man's voice, because I really enjoy the Vi Hart videos. Does the sleepy man do all of the videos or just the starter ones? I took the AoPS post-test for the Algebra and pre-algebra books and I think that I might actually start in pre-algebra to give myself something to feel good about / get used to the teaching style. I got the answers on the post-test, but I didn't feel "comfortable" -- I felt like I was guessing a lot, or that I could get things right, but I wasn't confident about it. If either of those descriptions make sense. PS - going to check out the alcumens now Kiana. I didn't realise what it was or that it was free. I think that I need to spend more time on their site :)
  17. I can explain it better I think, but my thoughts about how good or bad I was is pretty much all based on how I did on standardized testing and just feeling lost. In 6-9th grade I loved math, it was really easy. But a lot of that was because I'd been in honors math for years and was bumped down in 7th because I just stopped doing schoolwork (my parents got divorced). I remember doing really well on the Algebra Regents (98 or 99%) and looking forward to Geometry the next year. I got to geometry in 10th and spent the next three years with the same teacher - he "taught" Geometry, Trig, and Pre-Calc. Basically he taught by handing us the exam that we would be taking at the end of the year and then having us fill it in in class, completing everything that we didn't get to at home at the end of the week and then grading it. I was completely lost. I just felt so dumb because I just couldn't understand how to do the problems. The next monday he would hand us the answers and we would self grade and he'd hand us another booklet to fill out. If someone asked a question he would draw something on the board and talk for a bit, but his explanations never really made sense. Recently, while teaching my own children, I've started to wonder if I'm not "bad" at upperlevel math (ie Geometry, Trig and Calc) - which is what I thought for the last 20 or so years, but that but I simply couldn't learn it with his teaching style? I also had a lot of trouble in AP Physics too, because I had a lot of holes in my math education, I could memorize the forumlas and stick in the variables, but I think that I lacked a conceptual understanding of WHY it worked. Am I making more sense? PS - I do feel sort of silly - because I'd bought BA for DD1, but it never occured to me to use their upperlevel stuff for myself :D lol
  18. That's the one that I have as well - I LOVE it! I'm hard on devices (somehow I even manage to break staplers) but I haven't broken this. It's worked perfectly every time.
  19. Help!! I'd like to relearn upper math, starting from about pre-algebra up. I feel like mathy conversations keep coming up and I'm just fumbling for explanations. Normally I would just learn with my kids, but this is something that I'd like to do for myself. Lets pretend that: 1. Price is no object 2. If two or three different books work really well together then I could use all of them Other Considerations: 1. Algebraic math was exceptionally easy for me back in the day (but that I feel like I've forgotten all of it), but I was incredibly, really quite horrifically bad with Geometry/Trig 2. I can't learn by watching, my brain will shut off - I have to physically do the math. 3. I'm not very familiar with math terminology, I just remember being handed problems and algorithms, not learning why they worked. (Does this mean that proof-based math would be a good fit? I have no idea!!) If you could mention why you liked the math that would be enormously helpful. Thanks guys! Edited for clarity
  20. Sounds Awesome! I'd be pleased to share the info on my FB page about the blog tour! If you need another person to round out the week I'd be happy to write something up, but I'm not a great writer and my children are still pretty young so... I probably wouldn't be the best addition :)
  21. Ours isn't specifically insured since there wasn't any one item in it that we could point to as something irreplaceable. What we did was up the amount of the insurance that we carry for our general "household" items. Make sure that you take photographs of your bookshelves and other things in your house and put them on a disposable usb storage device (you can get large enough ones for this purpose for less than 10$) and give the device to a family member to hold onto for you (or just leave it in your car, checking on it once a year to make sure that it's not been fried by the high temps). That way if your house does burn down or get flooded, you have a record of your household items to justify the claim that you're going to put in.
  22. *blushes* I think that it might just the fact that almost every single page of the workbook and the teacher's book in Early Bird is in vibrant color. I like color (and by like, I mean love and that can't function without color). Plus, looking at the samples, Early Bird just seemed like it would be more fun (probably because of the aforementioned color), so I spent the extra money. The other plus is that Early Bird aligns to the stories, which I also bought. We spent a lot of time talking about the pictures in those stories, but I'm still not sure whether they were a worthwhile investment... can you tell yet that I spent waaay too much on K-4 math?
  23. I agree that enforceable legislation has been a really positive thing. But where I keep getting hung up on this topic is: How would you enforce that Evolution be taught, and how would you enforce the WAY that it is taught? It would be easy to read several pseudo-science texts debunking evolution and call that your evolution instruction. Edited - I desperately need to start using a browser with spell check.
×
×
  • Create New...